Concussion

Trust Your Child's Brain to the Experts

If your child has suffered a blow to the head or other head trauma and may have a concussion, it's important that he or she receive a full evaluation by an experienced team of specialists to ensure a proper recovery. At NewYork-Presbyterian, our pediatric concussion experts thoroughly assess your child to determine if a concussion has occurred, evaluate his or her cognitive function, and let you know when your child can return to normal activities. Allowing your child to fully recover from a concussion is essential for preventing other complications down the road. Your child will benefit from:

Our Team Approach: At the Weill Cornell Concussion and Brain Injury Clinic and the Columbia University Concussion Clinic, our multidisciplinary teams of pediatric neurologists, neurosurgeons, sports medicine doctors, intensive care physicians, neuro-ophthalmologists, neuroradiologists, and neuropsychologists assess and monitor your child's symptoms and function. We will match your child to most appropriate experts based on his or her age and symptoms.

Prompt Evaluation: We know that your child should be evaluated as soon as possible after a suspected concussion and try to schedule appointments within a day or two of the injury. We'll perform a physical exam and assess your child's cognitive function through tests of attention, memory, vision, reaction time, and other mental abilities. In some cases, we perform neuro-imaging such as MRI. Our doctors are team physicians for several sports teams and gather baseline measurements for those athletes to compare test results to in the event an athlete suffers a head injury.

A Roadmap to Recovery: We'll customize a recovery schedule for your child, recommending a period of rest and reduced activity followed by a gradual return to physical and mental activities, with the goal of a full return to regular levels of schoolwork and sports when your child has fully recovered. We use a series of cognitive, balance, and neuropsychological tests to help determine when your child is ready to return to play and school.

A Family-Centered Environment: You know your child better than anyone. As parents, you are vital members of our team. We'll rely on you and your child to let us know if your child is experiencing sleep problems or headaches, is having trouble concentrating in school, or seems anxious, irritable, or out of sorts. That kind of information is helpful to us in assessing your child's recovery from a concussion.

Expertise in Post-Concussive Syndrome: While most children recover fully from a concussion after resting and refraining from activities for a recommended period of time, some continue to experience lingering symptoms such as headaches and/or dizziness for several weeks or even months after the injury. Our teams include specialists in such post-concussion syndrome. In addition to providing cognitive rehabilitation for these patients, our doctors are conducting research to identify factors that may raise a child's risk of developing post-concussion syndrome, such as a history of migraines. They're also studying how eye tracking, brain imaging with MRI, and tests of neurocognitive performance can predict the risk of post-concussion syndrome.